There have been a few pieces in the news today, as there are a couple of programmes on tonight about the biopsychosocial reforms to the benefits system which are being inflicted upon people. Along with the usual other articles prompted by DWP briefings about how incredibly easy it is to live a life of luxury on disability benefits.

The man in charge of reviewing the government's controversial fitness-to-work benefit assessments is to stand down, the BBC's Panorama has learned.
Professor Malcolm Harrington has called for a big overhaul of the process of testing claimants' ability to work to make it more "fair and humane".
He said ministers wanted a "fresh set of eyes" - but denied this was because of changes he had asked for.
Officials said he had only been recruited for a limited period.
More than two million people currently claiming employment and support allowance - formerly known as incapacity benefit - are having their status reviewed as part of a government drive to get more people into work and reduce welfare bills.
The work capability assessments were first introduced on a pilot basis by Labour in 2008 and rolled out across the country by the coalition government.
Critics have said the large number of decisions overturned on appeal show the process is flawed and that tests are too impersonal, not medically rigorous enough and the fluctuating nature of some conditions is not sufficiently taken into account.Continue reading the main storyFind out more

Brought in to review the system in 2010, Prof Harrington has recommended major changes - such as putting a single health professional in overall charge of each case rather than relying on responses to questionnaires and computer assessments handled by staff from contractor Atos.
Prof Harrington - an occupational health specialist - told the Panorama programme he would stand down after he produced his third review later this year and someone else would take over.
He made it clear it was the government's decision, but rejected suggestions that he had effectively been sacked.
'Traumatic'
"They said to me 'you have been doing this for three years and you have come up with a number of recommendations which we are going to implement... we think it would be a good idea if a fresh set of eyes looked at it for the final two years'."
Prof Harrington said there was no political pressure for him to go and since he had not "come up with any bright ideas" in the last few months the time may be right for a change.Continue reading the main story“Start Quote

I think people are being treated more like human beings now but it is still difficult to go through it”​

Professor Malcolm Harrington
"At no stage has anybody... ever said to me we are not going to do that because we cannot be bothered or it is too much trouble. No recommendation has been turned down."
Under the system, claimants are placed in three categories: those deemed able to work straight away, those considered able to do so at some point in the future with the right help - the so-called work-related activity group - and those judged unable to work and needing unconditional support.
Prof Harrington said his recommendations had resulted in a fall in the number of those in the fit-to-work category and a rise in those in the work-related group - the most "difficult" group to assess.
Although he believes his recommendations have improved the system, Prof Harrington said changes were not happening quickly enough and the experience was still "traumatic" for many people.
"I think people are being treated more like human beings now but it is still difficult to go through it."
'Human beings'
Those challenging decisions often found themselves in "a state of limbo and increased anxiety" for months, he added, while it was "illogical" that some people were being asked to go for further tests just weeks after they had been found unable to work.
"I would like to think it was dramatically better and my recommendations have done a fantastic job. I am not sure that is true. I think it is better, it is improving but it is still patchy."Continue reading the main story“Start Quote

It was made clear at the start that Prof Harrington would undertake three reviews”​

Department for Work and Pensions
While people had been let down by the system, he challenged campaigners who had called for it to be scrapped entirely to come up with an alternative.
"What are you going to put in its place? Tell me why, how you are going to make it better."
Ministers have said the welfare state will continue to support those in "genuine need" but "tough decisions" have to be taken to tackle the deficit.
In a statement, the Department for Work and Pensions thanked Prof Harrington for his work.
"It was made clear at the start that Prof Harrington would undertake three reviews.
"The secretary of state for Work and Pensions is aiming to appoint a successor to undertake the fourth independent review of the work capability assessment before the end of 2012.
"The department is currently considering its options for the recruitment of Professor Harrington's successor and their terms of reference."

It is not about giving the sick the opportunity of work. It is about means testing disability benefit for all but the very sickest.

The work - related activity group - the biggest - most of whom will never get back to being well enough to actually work - will only continue to qualify for disability benefit after a year if they qualify under the current means testing rules.

So if you have a partner who works, if you have savings, no disability benefit.
This means that only the very poorest disabled people in Britain will get any disability benefit after the first year of sickness, even though the expense of living long term with a disabling condition is higher.

This will save the treasury a lot of money - and they can give it to their friends, the bankers. (Come to think of it, there are a lot of bankers in the Treasury!)

What have I (and others) been saying for a while, hm?
Gulags, gas chambers, corporations...evil changes it's guise but it's always the damn same.

Between 21 and perhaps up to 36 TRILLION dollars has been STOLEN, hidden away in tax shelters so that is theft, folks
by just 91,000 people.
So each of those fat cat scumbags has avoided paying tax on an average of $230 million dollars
note that's not their total worth (business, houses etc), merely what they've managed to hide from the taxman.
$21 trillion is about the combined economy of America and Japan.
That is vast fortunes being syphoned off, and tax revenue lost so hey if your nation has massive defecits, you know where to look
oh and cutting tax to the top 1% while having a war on two fronts...history long proves that's a great way to total collapse, jebuz

The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart points to a new paper (pdf) by three economists who estimate that the size of Greek tax evasion accounted for roughly half the country’s budget shortfall in 2008 and one-third in 2009.
How is it even possible to estimate taxes that aren’t ever paid? The economists, Nikolaos Artavanis, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura, cleverly exploit a discrepancy. Few people in Greece want to report their real income to the government, since that would mean paying more taxes. But Greek banks have very solid estimates for how much income people are actually raking in — the banks need this info to make loans or to issue mortgages.

Comparing bank data with government data, the authors found that the true income of the average Greek person is about 1.92 times larger than what’s actually reported to the government. In 2009, that shrunk the tax base by about $34 billion. Assuming that money was taxed at a 40 percent rate, that’s 31 percent of the country’s budget deficit in 2009 right there. As Lahart notes, “If Greece’s government was as adept as its banks at figuring out what its citizens earn, the world might be a very different place.”

Click to expand...

large scale tax evasion should be a crime on par with treason and sabotage.
why doie sit happen? because they make sure there are ways aorund tax
"Here Mr politician, campaign contributions...just add some bullcrap to the tax laws, please..."

meanwhile, the ACTUAL money used on welfare and health is a gawd damn pittance versus those fatcat scum, and does a hell of a lot more good for "true" Capitolism (which requires the "base", the ordinary joes, working or not, to be secure, comfortable and spending).
The less well off spend more of their available money, than the rich do
basic economics/common sense.
Disabled = jobs for carers and health workers
Welfare system = stable country without fear that breeds terror, insecurity, mass murderers and all kinds of gawd damn evil shit that eventually leads to societal collapse.
Guns do NOT kill people: screwed up, undiagnosed, uncertified, uncared for "blips the system cares nothing for", damn well DO kill people.
"Conservative" systems only work in low population denisty, resource rich, homogenous areas/societies (long as you keep the pretend-conservative-scoiopaths out of power).
Otherwise, like it or not, you need ""Western Socialism" to provide the safety net and base line of protection (long as you keep the "control freak scuzzballs" out of power).

Personally I'm less bothered about being treated like a human being (though wouldn't that be lovely) than I am about having my capacity to work accurately assessed. I am unable to look after myself and yet am having to appeal a decision to place me in the ESA WRA group. Glad I'm not actually coughing blood like that poor guy in the documentary.

It has bothered me, in media interviews with disabled charities and activists, this emphasis on how the problems with the process are that it is inhumane and doesn't take the person as a whole. What the ordinary listener/viewer will take away from that is the message that the test is accurate but unpleasant; that it's doing a necessary but tough job. I wish they would just ram home the message, over and over, that it's not fit for its purpose: to distinguish between those who can prepare for work and those who can't.